Mortal Engines (Predator Cities, #1)

by Philip Reeve

They strip their prey as quickly as they can and make the captives slaves in their engine-rooms. They don’t waste food and space on people who are too weak to work. It’s not really so different from what your precious London gets up to. At least this lot have the honesty to call themselves pirates.

All she could think of were the thousands of Londoners who were toiling and dying in misery so that a few lucky, wealthy people like herself could live in comfort.

Was this what falling in love was like? Not something big and amazing that you knew about straight away, like in a story, but a slow thing that crept over you in waves until you woke up one day and found that you were head-over-heels with someone quite unexpected,

“You aren’t a hero, and I’m not beautiful, and we probably won’t live happily ever after,” she said. “But we’re alive, and together, and we’re going to be all right.”